TSE Rendering Fallback?
by Wysardry · in Torque Game Engine · 06/06/2004 (8:09 am) · 5 replies
I was just wondering how the Torque Shader Engine will handle older graphics cards that are/were okay to use with TGE. Will it "fallback" to TGE rendering, or otherwise find a way to run on cards without shader support?
I've only recently upgraded my own video card, so I know how frustrating it is not to be able to run games just because that part of the system isn't new enough.
I've only recently upgraded my own video card, so I know how frustrating it is not to be able to run games just because that part of the system isn't new enough.
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#2
06/06/2004 (8:22 am)
There will be fall backs to older cards.
#3
In general, TGE is going to support older cards better than TSE can. But in two years there's going to be a very wide range of graphics cards that will be able to support TSE.
Ask yourself - how much effort are you going to spend supporting a broad range of cards? Do you want to only support low end cards? Only high end cards? If you want to support both your art requirements are going to go up pretty quick. It's all a balancing act.
06/06/2004 (11:59 am)
The big question is not whether it can fallback, but how hard you want to work to make fallbacks happen. For the demo, we're shooting at GF3-level hardware and above. But there's no reason you couldn't (pretty easily) write a fixed function fallback and let your games run on GF2. There's nothing in GFX that's going to prevent that, as long as you're willing to give up shaders. :)In general, TGE is going to support older cards better than TSE can. But in two years there's going to be a very wide range of graphics cards that will be able to support TSE.
Ask yourself - how much effort are you going to spend supporting a broad range of cards? Do you want to only support low end cards? Only high end cards? If you want to support both your art requirements are going to go up pretty quick. It's all a balancing act.
#4
My main concern at this point is how many people will be able to test any demos or prototypes we create in the meantime. I also prefer to cater for those with older hardware as much as practical.
According to the TSE info page, the main engine only requires a 1GHz CPU and 256 Mb RAM, which afaik is older technology than shading graphics cards.
In other words, if someone bought a 1GHz machine new (and is still using it), they'd probably need to have upgraded the graphics card to use a TSE game that didn't have fallback options.
It's a tough call, but if an additional 25% effort allowed another 25% of players to run the game, I'd consider it worthwhile.
06/07/2004 (6:37 am)
As you say, it is a balancing act, and in two years there will be a wide range of cards available that have shading capabilities.My main concern at this point is how many people will be able to test any demos or prototypes we create in the meantime. I also prefer to cater for those with older hardware as much as practical.
According to the TSE info page, the main engine only requires a 1GHz CPU and 256 Mb RAM, which afaik is older technology than shading graphics cards.
In other words, if someone bought a 1GHz machine new (and is still using it), they'd probably need to have upgraded the graphics card to use a TSE game that didn't have fallback options.
It's a tough call, but if an additional 25% effort allowed another 25% of players to run the game, I'd consider it worthwhile.
#5
06/07/2004 (8:03 am)
I agree with you. As TSE stands now it supports GF3/Radon 8500 64mb cards at a minimum. I think it's possible to make it go lower if you need to. 
Torque Owner Stefan Lundmark